20 Million Marijuana Arrests and Counting

by Matt Kelley · 2008-10-07 05:12:00 UTC
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Despite all of the talk of change this election season (I mean change, not change.org, although there's a lot of talk about change.org, too), there has been little mention of America's disastrous war on drugs. Meanwhile, we're quickly approaching a milestone - 20 million marijuana arrests - and there is no end in sight. NORML director Paul Armentano writes in In These Times about the disastrous effects of these misguided policies.

Since the early '90s, the total number of Americans busted annually for pot has nearly tripled. In 1991, police arrested a modern low of 288,000 people for minor marijuana violations in the United States, according to the FBI's annual Uniform Crime Report. By 2006 (the last year for which data is available), a record 830,000 people were arrested. (Of those arrested, an estimated 90 percent are charged with minor possession - not trafficking, cultivation or sale.)

Read his column here.

A new report from respected U.K. think tank the Beckley Foundation finds that alcohol and tobacco are more harmful to society than marijuana. The British government recently downgraded the penalties for marijuana offenses (from class B to less-serious class C), but lawmakers are considering reverting to class B.

In the U.S., marijuana decriminalization is making slow progress in the face of the still-frenzied and still-failing drug war. Massachusetts voters will consider a ballot initiative on November 4th to join 12 states in decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Polls are showing wide support for the question in Mass. Get involved in the Massachusetts campaign here.

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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